The music of Božidar Kunc

To hear examples please visit the New CD page & listen to Ivana Kunc sing selections from her father's repertoire.

View a sample of sheet music.

Božidar Kunc (b Zagreb, 18 July 1903; d Detroit, 1 April 1964). Croatian composer and pianist. An accomplished pianist while still a boy, he studied with Stančić and composition with Bersa at the Zagreb Academy of Music, graduating in 1925 and 1927 respectively. In the numerous recitals he gave he often performed works by Croatian composers and French Impressionists. From 1929 he taught the piano at the Academy and directed the opera studio there from 1941. In 1951 he moved to New York, primarily to assist his sister, the celebrated soprano Zinka Milanov, in her career. Most of Kunc’s compositions are for the piano, whether in strict sonata or concerto form, or as poetic programmatic miniatures; his style of writing for the instrument is masterly, employing a full range of texture, and differentiated, colouristic sounds. In later works his rich, post-Impressionistic harmony develops towards free atonality. His inclination for well-defined form and melody bears a certain resemblance to the style of Ravel, while his songs, mostly settings of Croatian and English texts, contain fine examples of flexible melodic and rhythmic writing. In a historical context, Kunc cuts a rather isolated figure far removed from the aspirations of Croatian musical nationalism.